Sigh.

This one wasn’t fun to write.

There’s an inherent risk outlined in any business where you’re trying to put food on the table. Back in the old days, stores had everything behind a counter with the store clerk between the customer and the goods. The customer would ask for an item, and the clerk would give it to them. It was virtually impossible to rob a store like this without either tricking a human being or making them aware, like committing robbery at gunpoint. Once stores changed and customers could take their items directly to the checkout line, sometimes they’d start skipping these checkout lines entirely.

Restaurants take this gamble pretty constantly, given they give you a bill after you’ve finished your meal. I think it’s fair to say that this model isn’t going away any time soon – any restaurant that charges you upfront before your meal invites discomfort and anxiety. I wanted my commissions to act like this, with a first-time commissioner paying once they’ve received some of my writing. I did not realize that restaurants hold a particular power over their customers – shame. If you steal from a store, people are mixed on their responses. I know a person that is down on their financial luck and steals pretty often from Walmart if they need to make ends meet. But if you steal from a restaurant… that’s dining and dashing. It has its own term. And maybe it’s because restaurants have smaller margins, or maybe it’s because the food is cooked for you there by people, or maybe it’s because it’s served to you, but for whatever reason, dining and dashing is considered a social taboo.

If you’re smart, you already know where it’s going with this. This past month, I had my first, and possibly my second, dine-and-dasher. The first one was my biggest commission yet – a very communicative person. Always replied within a couple hours of any email I’d send. I offered to write half of the piece then ask for payment (and without revealing anything, even half of the piece was over my usual 10,000 words). I was excited to publish this; it was looking good. I asked for payment and the commissioner told me they would do it, but it would take around a day to do. I told them it was no problem, and elected to continue working on the piece to ensure it was done on time to post in April. I got it done in a near-record, just a few days of concentrated work. The commissioner still wasn’t replying.

At this point I got nervous, so I restricted access to the commission piece and waited. I double-emailed the commissioner, then triple-emailed. No response. Three full weeks have gone by since. I think it’s fair to say I got dined-and-dashed.

The question of what to do with the now-completed piece now rings in my mind. If I post this piece, then on the off-chance the commissioner didn’t get to see the full thing, they will now. It also teaches future commissioners that if they commission me, they can skip on the payment, wait a week, and I’ll still post what they commissioned for their reading pleasure. I’m kind of stuck, with a piece I’m pretty proud of, and no real plan to make rent this upcoming month. While I may be an online erotica writer, I’m aware I’m good at what I do. I think with my skills, I deserve to… make rent and eat. This commissioner, it seems, disagrees.

I’m a very naïve person that likes to believe in the good of people. I’m also quite dramatic. This mix of traits often gets me in trouble in my personal life, but I do like having both qualities, particularly the former. I didn’t like what happened with this commission, but I wanted to believe that it was an outlier. I decided to get to work on my next commission piece, and finished it sometime last week. I emailed it to the commissioner… and two small days later, I haven’t heard back yet.

To be frank, this isn’t a problem. It’s been two days. The commissioner once needed five days to email me back about something, and to be blunt, I’m me. I sometimes take a month or more to email people back. Those that have commissioned me might know that for the past little bit, I’ve been living in a rural area far from any city, and have gotten used to living without needing the internet constantly. I also don’t like to make promises to people if I might disappear for a bit, and would rather not email people back at all instead of email them agreeing to do something then disappearing (which is, I admit, not my best habit). So this second commissioner not getting back to me within 48 hours when I took two weeks isn’t a problem.

What is a problem is the nagging worry, nibbling at my brain. What if this person refuses to pay too? What’ll you do then?

The world of commissions is all rather complicated. I don’t like money. I’m decidedly one of those people that believes in UBI – honestly, if I just got a minimum wage upfront, I could just write full-time and happily live a modest lifestyle. The amount I write would likely only go up, since I wouldn’t have to take odd jobs and move lumber (which is much harder and more physically demanding than you’d think) for a couple hours a day. Someone has to move this lumber, and it’s nice to be humbled and do work that no one fantasizes about, especially when it helps other people out here. But still… the dream of being a writer still lives within me. I don’t like both that I have these obstacles, and that I now see any lack of response within 12 hours as a potential obstacle. Temporarily, I’ve lost my ability to trust people.

The solution seems obvious, right? Take money upfront. I literally just talked about the benefits of it. The problem comes with me being prone to disappearing or going quiet for a little bit, either due to working, battling my demons, or even not having Internet that day. If you email me and I take a month to get back to you, you have a right to be annoyed. But if you pay me money and I don’t get back to you within a month… you have a right to feel scammed. I never, ever want to come across as dishonest or a scammer. It’s the worst-case scenario for me as a commissioned writer. And I know me disappearing for a bit will always be a possibility. Not always a reality, but a possibility.

I don’t know what my next move is. I got really discouraged from commissioning, and writing on a whole, for a while. Even my reliable commission series, Final Answer, has not been able to find the extra money to pay me for the upcoming chapter 12, which is not the commissioner’s fault and I never want to guilt anyone for not having money. The commissioner can take as long as they need to get the money together. Even still, I’ve been in a pickle. I’m holding onto a commission I don’t want to post, I didn’t receive payment, I’m wary about the most reasonable pauses in communication, I’m not motivated to write erotica, and the lack of that commission money means I needed to haul more lumber more often which eats up my time. Plus, when you come home after lugging around things that weigh more than you for four hours, are you ready to sit down at the desk and write? Nope. You’re ready to sit down in a chair and do nothing.

There’s a next move here. I just haven’t figured out what it is. More than anything, you all deserved an update. My Patrons still paid for the last month and deserve a piece, both from this past month and this current one. I’ll think of something. In the meantime, if I commission you and my tone has even slightly changed in my emails, it’s not personal at all. I’m just trying to figure out what to do from here to ensure all parties are adequately looked after, but that includes myself. I’ll talk to you all soon.

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